July 11, 2003
D.C. Baseball Update
Eric Fisher of the Washington Times has another great article on the prospects of putting a stadium in Northern Virginia to house the Montreal Expos.
The owners of the land that contains one of the proposed stadium sites, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and the H Street Building Corp., have started an intense public relations campaign to let the world know they aren't interested in selling their site. Further, this effort included a poll of Arlington, Virginia county residents that found that 65 percent of them are against building a stadium.
A poll taken recently by the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority found that 55 percent of Arlingtonians actually favored a stadium.
"We have owned this land for more than 50 years and intend to continue to own it for another 50 years, and another 50 years after that," said Jack Ritchie, H Street Building Corp. president. "There has been much speculation about the possibility that, if we do not agree to sell to the Stadium Authority, they may attempt to take our site by condemnation. It's an unfortunate situation when a long-term landowner is forced to incur substantial expense to keep the government from coming along and taking his property for what is really a private use."
Ritchie said he and the foundation would not sell "at any price."
The Simon Coda
To most of the world, she was just an Italian Sausage running down the third baseline in foul ground. But to her family, she's 19-year old Mandy Block, and she was inside the costume when Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon struck her with a bat sending her to the ground.
Don't worry, she's accepted Simon's apology, but rejected the Pirates peace offering of free tickets. Instead, Block will get the bat Simon used to knock her down complete with his autograph. The girl in the Polish Sausage costume, who tripped over Block, gets a bat too.
I just saw the video again, and I still can't get over the fact that while the Hot Dog stopped to see if the others who fell were ok, the Bratwurst just kept running. Priceless.
Johnson Brings Them In
The El Paso Diablos drew better than 11,000 fans to their game last night against Midland. Not your usual crowd, but then again it isn't every night that you get to see Randy Johnson make a minor league rehab start.
Unfortunately, pitching in El Paso meant that Johnson wouldn't be pitching in Nashville against the hometown Sounds. So, instead, the team brought out five locals named Randy Johnson to throw out the first pitch.
Webber Trial Date Set
The Federal criminal trial of Sacramento Kings forward Chris Webber and his father Mayce begins Tuesday in Detroit. The two are charged with lying to a Federal grand jury concerning payments made by late Michigan booster Ed Martin. One twist: a hearing will be held on Monday to determine whether or not Detroit Free Press reporter Mitch Albom will be forced to testify in the case.
Stay tuned.
The Post Olympic Tab
The folks up in Vancouver are celebrating now that they know they've been awarded the 2012 Winter Olympic Games. But what happens after the party's over?
Ask the folks in Salt Lake City, where the foundation that maintains Olympic venues say they will be running out of money in two to three years:
The Utah Athletic Foundation will be forced to spend an additional $2.5 million a year to maintain the venues for ski jumping, bobsled and luge, cross-country skiing and a speedskating oval, president and chief executive Mark Lewis told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Lewis said the venues require no special maintenance now, but wear and tear will require major financial outlays within three years. That's money the foundation doesn't have in its operating budget, he said.
Lewis laid out a few options for his board: The foundation could decide to start draining a $52 million endowment, which was supposed to remain untouched except for the interest earnings.
It could ignore the venues' maintenance needs, "but these facilities will eventually wear out," he said. Or the foundation could look for ways to cut operating expenses.
This reminds me a lot of what's happening in Atlanta, where the locals have discovered they don't have all that much use for a Velodrome, at least not until the Olympics comes back to town.
July 10, 2003
D.C. Baseball Update
When there is doubt, there is no doubt.
Robert DeNiro in Ronin
In the Washington Times, Eric Fisher is reporting that Major League Baseball will not meet its self-imposed deadline of July 15th to announce whether or not the Montreal Expos will relocate in time to begin play somewhere else in time for the start of the 2004 Baseball season.
It's over. But then again, it was never really on to begin with.
The Movement That Is Moneyball
Over at Blissful Knowledge, Dr. Manhattan has a treasure trove of Moneyball-related information. Most recently, he linked to an interview Robert Birnbaum conducted with Moneyball author Michael Lewis about how the book is impacting outside of the world of sports:
The lead investment strategist for Credit Suisse/First Boston, the investment bank, devoted his whole research report a week or two ago to this book. The gist of it was if you want to know how to manage money the Oakland A's are a good example—if you want to look at allocation of resources and how you think about it.
The second post concerns a trial balloon the good doctor is floating concerning who would be the best sort of manager to match up with Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane:
The perfect managerial match for Billy Beane would share his intellect and volatility. He would not be afraid to cause controversy in his commitment to doing what he felt was the right move (in baseball terms: to tell his detractors and the media to go f$#% themselves). And a connection to the Mets wouldn't hurt.
Bobby Valentine, would you like to move to Oakland?
Not long ago, Newsday's Sports Television writer, Steve Zipay, spent a day in Bristol at ESPN with Valentine as he prepared for a Baseball Tonight broadcast, and one of the beauties Valentine uncorked was his belief that Moneyball was "80 percent fiction." If anything, I'm not sure there's a room big enough to accomodate a pair of egos the size of Valentine's and Beane's. Both would need to work with someone who would serve as more of a foil: which is why Beane works so well now with the low key Ken Macha; and it's also why Valentine clashed so often with the high profile ex-Mets General Manager, Steve Phillips.
POSTSCRIPT: The Doc also links to the latest column from ESPN.com's Rob Neyer, who interviewed ex-Houston Astros manager Larry Dierker, and how some of the principals of Moneyball can and did cause friction between Dierker and players who thought they knew better.
Bedtime Roundup
Nike has purchased Converse for $305 million. A pair of Chuck Taylor's was the first sneakers I ever remember owning, and I favored Converse over Nike when it came to Basketball shoes through Junior High School. Then that Jordan guy decided to leave North Carolina early. . .
After the US Postal Service Team won Wednesday's time trial, Lance Armstrong is in second place overall in the Tour de France, only one second off the lead. And we're not even in the mountains yet, where Armstrong typically destroys the field year after year.
The NCAA announced some changes in their bracketing and seeding for the Men's Division I Basketball tourney. Bottom line: it doesn't change the way you fill out your brackets, so don't worry about it.
Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon was questioned by Milwaukee police after he struck one of the "racing sausages" with his bat between innings at a Pirates-Brewer
